Weight lifting is a physical activity in which a person lifts a barbell, dumbbell, or other weight one or more times. The primary goal of weight lifting is to strengthen and increase the size of the skeletal muscles. Weight lifting (also known as weight training) is practiced by millions of people worldwide for general fitness. Weight lifting also includes the sports of bodybuilding (in which contestants compete to have the most muscular and attractive bodies), powerlifting (in which contestants compete to lift the most weight in the bench press, squat, and dead lift), and weightlifting (an Olympic sport in which contestants compete to lift the most weight in the snatch and the clean and jerk).
Muscle development is maximized during weight lifting by repeating the lift until muscle failure occurs (when another repetition cannot be performed). When failure occurs while performing a lift (whether standing, sitting, or lying down), the lifter must set the weight back down upon the floor. Overall fatigue makes it difficult to lean over to set a weight down gently upon the floor after failure. For example, it is especially difficult to set dumbbells down when lying on a bench performing dumbbell presses. As a result, weight lifters must sometimes drop the weight upon the floor at the end of a set. Some weight lifters also drop weights to draw attention to themselves.
Dropping a weight upon a floor is damaging to the floor and creates noise that is distracting and upsetting to others. To reduce damage and noise, many gyms have floors that are covered with a resilient surface. For example, a resilient surface composed of sheets of material is disclosed in Gilman, U.S. Pat. No. 4,137,348, Jan. 30, 1979; and a resilient surface composed of foam pieces of varying size is disclosed in Chu, U.S. Pat. Appln. Publn. No. 2013/0043627, Feb. 21, 2013. Unfortunately, resilient surfaces create their own problems. In particular, dropping a weight on a resilient surface is dangerous because the weight can bounce off the floor and injure bystanders. Many gyms have rules against dropping weights, but enforcement is difficult and many lifters continue to drop the weights.
Various products have been disclosed that contain resilient pellets. For example, Gamertsfelder, U.S. Pat. No. 3,480,280, Nov. 25, 1969, discloses a bean bag game projectile filled with resilient rubber pellets, and Weber, U.S. Pat. No. 7,943,213, May 17, 2011, discloses an artificial athletic field surface having the structure of a giant, flat bean bag. These products are not sized, shaped, or suited for use with weight lifting.
A golf training aid consisting of an impact bag to be hit by the golf club is sold as the SKLZ SMASH BAG golf trainer by Pro Performance Sports of Carlsbad, Calif. on its website www.sklz.com. The bag contains a zipper and is filled with towels or clothes by the user. The bag is not sized, shaped, or suited for use with weight lifting.
Accordingly, there is a demand for a weight lifting accessory and a weight lifting method that allows a weight lifter to drop a weight with minimal damage to the floor, with minimal noise, and without any bouncing of the weight.